India to launch 12 foreign satellites in next two years

Bangalore: India has bagged multi-million dollar contracts to launch 12 foreign satellites in the lower orbit from its spaceport over the next two years, a top space agency official said Wednesday.

"Through our commercial arm Antrix Corporation, we have received orders from Canada, Indonesia, Germany and other European countries to launch a dozen satellites in the sun-synchronous orbit during the next two years," state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan told reporters here.

Of the 12 satellites, four are from Canada, two each from Indonesia and Germany and one from Luxembourg. The remaining three spacecraft are from universities in Europe.

"We have an order from Germany to launch an 800-kg dedicated satellite (N-Map) for environmental studies. The other satellites, weighing between 80-100 kg will be launched on board our polar satellite launch vehicles (PSLVs) as additional payloads along with Indian communications or remote-sensing satellites," an Antrix official said.

Antrix is also in negotiations with France to launch a remote sensing satellite (EnMAP) in the lower orbit.

India has already launched a total of 26 foreign satellites during the past decade for various countries, including Germany, Italy, Israel, Korea and Singapore.

Indian astronaut to walk on Moon in 2025: Kalam

Bangalore: Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Wednesday hoped an Indian astronaut would walk on the Moon in 2025 and on Mars by 2035.

"I believe an Indian astronaut will walk on the Moon in 2025 and on Mars by 2035. The Indian space agency should attempt to put an Indian on Moon and Mars between 2025 and 2035," Kalam said at a function here.

Releasing a book titled "All About Rockets", authored by advisor to the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) S.K. Das, Kalam said Indian space scientists should innovate cutting-edge technologies to reduce the cost of access to space to $2,000 per kg from the current $20,000 per kg.

"Low cost access to space is the way forward. The challenge for the Indian space scientists is to reduce the launch cost to $2,000 per kg from $20,000 per kg currently by using nanotechnology and reusable single-engine stage launches," Kalam told ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan and directors of the space agency's various space centres who were present on the occasion.

Recalling his long association with the space agency and his involvement in the failures and successful launches of the first satellite launch vehicle (SLV) and the subsequent polar satellite launch vehicles (PSLVs), Kalam said space was another destination for man's quest for renewable energy.
"One of the spin-offs I foresee from space technology is to innovate a low-cost energy solution. We are already using solar energy to power satellites to orbit around the Earth and run its various payloads (instruments). We need to innovate a solution to transfer the solar-generated energy to earth and store it in the form of power cells or batteries that can be used as renewable energy," Kalam pointed out.

Regretting that India has been a laggard in achieving breakthroughs in rocket launches, building satellites or supercomputers, Kalam said the country should overcome the status of being a "fourth or fifth nation syndrome" to becoming the first country in cracking space technology and ICT (information and communication technology) through innovation and research.

"After every successful launch of a rocket or satellite, India is ranked as the fourth or fifth nation in the world to have achieved success or breakthrough in space technology. It is time for us to overcome the fourth or fifth nation syndrome and be the first among equals if we have to become a superpower. We can do it," Kalam added.

ISAT-2011: Register for Counselling by June 9

Indian Institute of Space Science Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram, has notified the counseling dates for admission to the Under Graduate B Tech Programmes at the Institute. Candidates who appear in the published rank list of ISAT-2011, the Admission test for B Tech Programmes at IIST, should register for counselling and exercise their options for branch of study in the order of preference.

The registration has to be completed on or before 9th June 2011. Only those students, who register for Counselling and indicate their preference, will be called for Counselling.

For Online registration, candidate has to click on the ISAT-2011 Online Registration for Counselling link at http://www.iist.ac.in/admission/isat2011and then click on the STUDENT LOGIN link available there. Candidate should login using the valid login credentials and select the options for branch of study from the list (Aerospace Engineering, Avionics or Physical Sciences) in the order of preference of the candidate. The same options cannot be repeated.

Candidates have to enter the percentage of marks obtained in 12th Standard (PCM only). Candidates who appear in the rank lists of General as well as any of the Reserved Categories (OBC/SC/ST/PD) are provided an Additional Option to select the registration category. The rank along with the category details are displayed in this section. Candidate can select either General or applicable reserved category or both in the registration category.

After successful registration, candidate can re-login and verify the details.Candidates can modify their option till the last date of online registration. They can also change their options at the time of Counselling, depending on the vacancies available. Online Registration alone does not guarantee admission in IIST.

Result of the First Counselling will be published on 10th June 2011.
First Counselling will be on 25th June 2011 ( General) and 26th June 2011 (OBC,SC,ST,PD) at Bangalore.
Subject to the availability of seats after First Counselling, list will be published for Second Counselling.
Result of Second Counselling will be published on 27th June 2011.
Second Counselling will be on 8th July 2011 (General) and 9th July 2011 (OBC,SC,ST,PD) at Thiruvananthapuram.

Candidates have to be physically present at the time of Counselling, fulfill all the eligibility criteria for admission and produce the necessary documents, to be offered admission. They have to be accompanied by one of the parents at the time of Counselling.Details regarding venue, timing and other counselling information will be published in the website later.

For details visit http://www.iist.ac.in/admission/isat2011

ISRO postpones remote sensing satellite’s launch

Not wanting to risk a failure of its lucrative Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and to be doubly sure about the on-flight performance of the various subsystems, India's space agency has postponed the launch of the rocket carrying remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 by nearly a month.

"A realistic date of launch could be estimated only by the end of this month as it depends on the results of tests that are being done to know the high temperature tolerance levels of a key component," an official of Indian Space Research Organisation told IANS.

The PSLV launch, scheduled for launch this week, was supposed to sling Resourcesat-2 and two other small satellites - Youthsat and X-Sat - into orbit. Remote sensing satellites like Resourcesat send back pictures and other data for various uses. India is a major player in providing such data in the global market.

The Youthsat, an Indo-Russian micro satellite, carries two payloads - one Indian and the other Russian. Singapore's X-Sat is also a micro satellite.

ISRO officials told IANS the space agency's chairman K. Radhakrishnan wanted to be sure about the parameters of the rocket's subsystems as he was of the view that ISRO cannot afford another failure and that too involving the PSLV rocket.

ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation is earning a sizeable sum launching third party satellites using PSLV rockets.

The Indian space agency's last two missions involving its heavy rocket - Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) - ended as a failure resulting in a total loss of around Rs.600 crore -- cost of two rockets and two satellites.

According to ISRO officials, even if the test results turn out positive and the launch decision is taken, it would require minimum of around 20 days to get ready the PSLV rocket for the launch.

India has the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites in the world providing imageries in variety of spatial resolutions from better than a metre ranging up to 500 metres.

The remote sensing satellites that are operational are: Cartosat-2B, Oceansat-2, RISAT-2, Cartosat-2A, IMS-1, Cartosat-2, Resourcesat-1 and TES.

For some time Resourcesat-2 and Resourcesat-1 would work together before the latter would go into oblivion.

Launched in 2003, Resourcesat-1 has outlived its original mission life of five years.

Compared to Resourcesat-1, the multispectral swath of Resourcesat-2 has been enhanced from 23 km to 70 km based on user needs.

Suitable changes including miniaturisation in payload electronics have been incorporated in Resourcesat-2.

The other remote sensing satellites that ISRO plans to launch are RISAT, Megha-Tropiques, INSAT-3D a meteorological satellite, Astrosat (astronomy satellite to observe celestial bodies)

ISRO suspends telecast of edu channels, students suffer

Indian space agency ISRO has suspended the telecast of popular educational programmes in many states due to an unidentified glitch in its ground equipment, says a senior official. As a result, millions of students have been affected.

"This is the first time we have been asked to suspend conducting virtual classroom teaching for over three weeks since Feb 3, affecting about six million students in 12,000 schools across the state," a top Kerala education department official told IANS.

In a note Feb 12, a copy of which is with IANS, state-run Indian Space Research Organisation directed the Kerala education department to keep the hub used to telecast its 17-hour educational classes in switch off mode due to 'inference issues' in channel 12 of Insat-4CR communication satellite till Friday.

Other states where telecasting of state-funded educational programmes is severely affected include Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.

The space agency shifted beaming the educational programmes in November last year to Insat-4CR from its dedicated satellite (Edusat) after its mission life ended prematurely. Meant for distant classroom education from school to college levels, Edusat was launched in September 2004.

"Due to malfunctioning of the ground equipment, we are not able to relay the signals from the transponder to telecast the programmes," a senior scientist associated with the satellite communication and navigation programmes (SCNP) said.

"We are trying to locate the problem and fix it in the next three-four days so that we can resume the channel," the scientist added but declined to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The glitch has, however, not affected the operations of other users of Insat-4CR that was launched in September 2007.

Other users of the satellite include the country's largest telecom player Airtel, Utkarsh channel, Orissa Space Application Centre and Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-Informatics though their programmes are beamed through different transponders.

In addition to the Virtual Classroom Technology on Edusat for Rural Schools (ViCTERS) of the Kerala education department, Visvesvaraya Technology University (VTU) and Vidya Vahini in Karnataka too are users of the satellite for educational programmes.

"This is the second time in 10 days we have been directed to keep the hub switched off for two weeks more. We are not sure if we will be able to resume the programmes after Friday, as there is no further directive from ISRO yet," Anwar Sadath, Kerala IT @ School Project executive director, said.

Launched by former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in 2006, ViCTERS is Kerala's Rs.120-crore IT School Project to provide high speed net connectivity to schools and implement learning management solutions.

Veteran journalist Anand Parthasarathy, who anchors a weekly programme "IT For All" on the channel in Kerala, countered the official claim and wondered how ISRO was adhering to quality of service (QoS) conditions by providing its channels to commercial users from the same satellite, assuring an uptime of 99.9 per cent.

"I find it outrageous that a state-run organisation, which meets its obligations to its paying customers, can with impunity cut off for weeks a vital educational umbilical that assures distance education for millions of students," Parthasarathy asserted.

As ISRO is under cloud over the now annulled controversial deal for allotting scarce S-band spectrum to a private firm (Devas) without bids, its officials and scientists are wary of admitting that shortage of transponders and other priorities are forcing them to shuffle the usage pattern of its channels to users.

With the loss of about 50 transponders due to twin launch failures and operational glitches in Insat-4B during the last 12 months, ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation has been forced to lease a whopping 70 transponders from foreign satellites such as Intelsat and Measat of Malaysia to meet the demand for space-based services from private and state-run agencies.

According to a source associated with the programmes, ISRO is forced to allot the satellite channel meant for Edusat programmes to its commercial end-users, including television channels, radio broadcasters and private/public institutions as part of its service commitments and contractual obligations.

"Due to non-availability of the terrestrial channel, we are suffering a lot, as preparation for the board exams from next month is affected. We conduct revision classes to students appearing in the final exams through the channel, which is also aired by thousands of cable operators as part of the package," Sadath lamented.

ISRO rocket explodes

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) suffered a major setback on Saturday when the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-F06 launch vehicle failed to put communication satellite GSAT-5P in orbit.

GSLV-F06, powered by Russian cryogenic engine, lifted off from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 4:04 PM on Saturday evening after the 29-hour countdown. But the rocket deviated from its intended path and exploded mid-air destroying the Rs 125 crore communication satellite GSAT-5P.

ISRO sources said the rocket failed due to a techinical glitch in the first stage of the lift-off.

GSAT-5P, weighing 2,130 kg, with 24 C-band transponders and 12 extended C-band transponders was to ensure continuity of telecom, television and weather services. The satellite was scheduled to replace the INSAT-2E satellite, which was put in orbit in 1999.

The satellite, developed by ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, was the fifth in the GSAT series. It had a designed mission life of 12 years.

The launch of the satellite, which was originally scheduled for December 20, had been postponed after a leak in the Russian cryogenic engine on board the launch vehicle.

This is the second failure this year for ISRO after the previous GSLV mission with the country's maiden cryogenic engine hit a snag and the rocket plunged into the Bay of Bengal on April 15 this year.